Pushing Daisies

[ACADEMY - NIGHT: In the community sleeping quarters, slumbering boys occupy the beds, except for one noticeably empty bed …]

Narrator: Bedtime at the Longborough School for Boys was a time for dreams, dreams filled with the bliss that came from a happy childhood. But on this night, one boy chose to dream with his eyes wide open. [Ned is wearing a makeshift Pterodactyl outfit and holding two Play-Doh figures modeled after his mother and himself, along with a model of Chuck] Eleven weeks, 1 day, 7 hours and 41 minutes ago, young Ned was living that happy childhood, complete with a lovely home, caring mother and boyhood sweetheart, a girl he called Chuck. [Digby pops his head out from inside a trunk in front of his bed] But when his mother died – twice – young Ned awoke to a new reality. Though he could reanimate the dead, young Ned could only animate the inanimate with his imagination. On this lonely night, he tried to recreate his past life … [the clay models of Ned and Chuck come alive and approach; just as they reach one another, the clay models of Chuck and himself collapse and fall apart, struggling to touch one another. Ned’s face falls as reality sets back in]

Narrator: … But he’d lost his ability to dream and found even his imagination failed him. [Digby whines and goes back inside the trunk. Ned turns away and looks sadly out the window at the full moon] Still, he wore hope on his head. What young Ned didn’t know was at that very moment, the girl he called Chuck was wearing hope on hers. [CHARLES’ HOME: Young Chuck is staring wistfully at the same moon wearing her dinosaur outfit] They were together even if they were far apart.

[NED’S BEDROOM – MORNING: Ned is lying in bed staring at the ceiling; he turns on his side just as Chuck stirs awake opposite him in her bed]

Narrator: For unfortunately, The Pie Maker could never, ever touch her.

Chuck: Are you watching me sleep?

Ned: Uh, no. Sort of. But mainly I was just waiting for you to wake up, but in the process of waiting for you to wake up, I was, yes, I was watching you sleep.

Chuck: You do that a lot, don’t you?

Ned: [smiling] It’s like watching you come back to life.

Chuck: Again. [throws off the covers] Good morning. [as she steps into the space between their beds, she trips on Digby and lands facefirst across Ned’s body, who instinctively catches her with his hands, but it’s too late: he touched her. Ned is frozen in horror at the thought of killing Chuck … until she raises her head with a gasp]

Ned: You’re not – ?

Chuck: How come I’m not – ?

Ned: Maybe it wears off, maybe there’s an eclipse, maybe … [touches her arm for the first time, entranced] Oh, my God, your skin is amazing –

Chuck: [puts a finger to his lips] Stop talking. [they come together for a series of breathless kisses; they finally come up for air] We’re wearing too many clothes. [smiling, they quickly remove their tops; Digby whines and covers his eyes with a paw] I’m still wearing too many clothes.

Ned: [admiringly] You’re not wearing any. [to Ned’s horror again, Chuck removes her skin to reveal … a naked Olive] Oh.

Olive: Much better. [Ned sits up and she embraces him] Don’t tell Chuck. [they kiss … and Ned wakes up with a start, realizing that he’s kissing his pillow]

Ned: Oh. [quickly lays on his side as Chuck opens her eyes]

Chuck: Are you watching me sleep?

Ned: Um, yes, I was.

Chuck: You do that a lot, don’t you?

Ned: Um, yes, I do.

Narrator: The Pie Maker wanted to tell Chuck that he liked watching the moment she waked, that it was like watching her come back to life, again. So instead he said nothing. [Ned gets out of bed with a sigh]

[THE PIE HOLE: Emerson is in a booth; Ned joins him. He guiltily sneaks a look at Olive and Chuck, who are at the counter refilling the sugar dispensers]

Narrator: So The Pie Maker sought to use Emerson Cod as a sounding board for that reality, which recently included a moonlit kiss with one Olive Snook.

Ned: I had a sexy dream about Olive last night. [Emerson rolls his eyes] And I’m sure it was influenced by a reality-based kiss by the road, y’know …

Emerson: There’s no way for this conversation to be anything but awkward for me.

Ned: She was wearing a Chuck suit. In the dream. What do you think it means, beyond the obvious?

Emerson: Dreams are just your brain processing random rigmarole it couldn’t find a place for: it don’t mean nothin’. Except you feel guilty about kissing Olive when you want to be kissing some dead girl you can’t.

Ned: I said “Beyond the obvious”. And Olive kissed me: it was a friendly expression of innocent gratitude.

Emerson: Was it a wet kiss or a dry kiss?

Ned: There was a little moisture, I guess … ohh … [holds his fists to his head]

Emerson: That girl dropped a bomb in your subconscious with her saliva.

Ned: You make it sound so devious. It’s not: it didn’t mean anything, which is why Chuck doesn’t have to know.

Narrator: Emerson Cod had a very particular view on romantic relations.

Emerson: Someone we love like gangstas: it’d be like “Ooh, baby, you bleedin’, how that happen?” While they hiding a razor in their weave.

Ned: Olive’s not a gangster.

Emerson: Why you think she always rubbin’ up on you?

Ned: [quickly] To be nice! It’s an employee-employer kind of … niceness that occasionally includes platonic rubbing.

Emerson: Ain’t nothing platonic about it.

Ned: [finally realizing] Oh. Ohh … [drops his head on the table]

Emerson: Heh-heh-heh-heh … you coming undone, ain’t you?

Ned: I don’t want to touch Olive – not in that way.

Emerson: Mmm-hmm.

Narrator: In fact, The Pie Maker was coming undone: as he wrestled with the meaning of Olive’s affections, Olive wrestled with her own emotions about the kiss. So she confessed.

Olive: It didn’t mean anything, that’s why I’m telling you. It was a friendly expression of innocent gratitude. A peck – it didn’t even last a second! [off her watch] In fact, one-thousand one. See? Couldn’t have been half that.

Chuck: [more surprised than upset] Half?

Olive: A third! Maybe even a quarter, very brief. He didn’t mention it?

Chuck: No. Should he have?

Olive: No.

Narrator: Olive Snook was saddened her kiss wasn’t worth a mention.

Chuck: [evenly] Oh, well: I guess Ned deserves a friendly expression of innocent gratitude, but I don’t think I’d like it if you did it again.

Olive: I don’t think I’d like it either. I mean, I would: but not in this context.

Chuck: [smiling] So does that mean Ned’s lips were soft?

Olive: You don’t know?

Chuck: We don’t touch – well, not directly, prophylactically, yes, but nothing more.

Olive: You don’t touch … you don’t! I have been watching you – not obsessively – but I’ve been paying attention. You don’t touch!

Chuck: We can’t.

Olive: Which is why you kissed through the plastic food wrapper – I couldn’t get my head around it. Do you have some kind of deadly food allergy to Ned?

Chuck: I’m going to say yes: I get swelling, eczema, hives. All things to avoid.

Olive: That’s the most tragic story I’ve ever heard. [Chuck holds back a laugh] Not withstanding the big ticket items like genocide and famine. But tragic nonetheless …

Chuck: Oh, I don’t know: surely not that bad.

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Pushing Daisies, Pushing Daisies Bitches transcript